Declaring war on car companies, Apple is targeting the "soul" of car companies this time?

A few days ago, Apple CarPlay ushered in an epic update.In a nutshell, the main points are as follows:

Support all screens in the car, including instrumentation, central control, and even "fish screen", and allow users to customize the background, layout, etc. of the instrument panel;

Various data such as vehicle speed, engine speed, oil temperature, and oil quantity can be obtained through the instrument;

Supports the control of hardware devices such as windows, air conditioners, and seats.

The last two points are particularly important because it means that CarPlay has already connected the underlying data and control systems of the vehicle.In the past, the role of CarPlay was more to map the screen of the mobile phone to the screen of the car, and it could only support simple audio and video output and navigation and other functions.

Image source: Apple official website

The new version released this time can be said to reshape the user experience in many aspects, and in the eyes of many people, it will form a new wave of impact on the smart cockpit.He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of Xiaopeng Motors, has publicly stated that CarPlay is a very good solution in this generation of cars.

Even in the eyes of many people, although Apple has not yet built a car, it wants to make all cars into Apple cars based on the new CarPlay.However, will car companies really "bow" to a mobile phone?

Mobile phone "control" the car

In 2014, at the Geneva Motor Show, Apple officially launched CarPlay as a medium for linking iPhones and cars.Connected to the central control of the car through CarPlay, users can implement functions such as phone calls and navigation on the central control screen.Once this function was launched, it was recognized by Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Ferrari, etc., and it was confirmed that it would be equipped on related models of the brand.

Since then, Apple has been continuously optimizing the functions and user experience of CarPlay, including from only supporting the system's own software to gradually connecting to many third-party software, and continuously optimizing the interface design.Although until this new version was released, CarPlay seemed to be just a simple mobile phone mapping system, but industry insiders said that there were "basically no bad reviews".The data shows that CarPlay was installed on more than 600 models around the world at its peak, and its degree of recognition is evident.

Image source: Apple official website

Analyzing the reasons, the early car system is equivalent to "black box" development, and the technical support of software and hardware is low, which makes the function and content of the central control screen relatively thin, and also faces problems such as slow data transmission, poor operation sensitivity and fluency, etc. , the user experience is poor.At the same time, the smartphones of the same period have fast iteration speed of software and hardware, smooth and convenient operation, and rich and comprehensive content ecology. In contrast, they provide good market conditions for the popularization of CarPlay.

However, this method also faces a problem, that is, the "screen projection" mobile phone vehicle system shares the screen with the control system of the car itself, and there is a conflict.When the user wants to adjust the temperature of the air conditioner on the central control screen, the corresponding operation can only be performed by exiting the CarPlay interface first.

The new CarPlay released this time has solved this "function conflict" problem very well. Because it is connected to the car control system, you can synchronously understand the information from the vehicle without exiting the CarPlay interface, such as speed, battery life, fuel volume, air conditioning, seat adjustment. chair, etc.In Apple's words, "the new CarPlay-powered vehicle dashboard."

Image source: Apple official website

The interface layout and UI design of CarPlay enable the content of the iPhone to be displayed on the central control screen of the car as a whole, which is extremely suitable for the minimalist design of the iOS of the mobile phone. It has developed an extended version of the iPhone, and has also realized the evolution from screen projection to two-way deep integration.

In particular, the "stacking" of functions of smart cars poses challenges to both software and hardware development capabilities and computing power. The new CarPlay allows car companies (mainly fuel vehicles) to make up for the shortcomings of intelligence in a short period of time at a small cost.Especially compared with the new forces, many traditional car companies are not good at software and hardware development,and the iterative upgrade speed of theintelligent network connection technology of fuel vehicles is slow. Using CarPlay to access Apple's content ecology is "equivalent to opening an OBD plug-in for the car."

Therefore, there is a point of view, "buying an iPhone comes with a smart cockpit".The new CarPlay transfers the update of the car system to the mobile phone, and car companies can greatly reduce the payment cost of iterative upgrades of software and hardware.This view believes that the new CarPlay is good for fuel vehicles, and may be bad for new forces.

Moreover, with the support of the iOS operating system, based on CarPlay, all ecological interoperability between cars and Apple can be realized, including mobile phones, mobile homes, smart wearable devices, etc.

Image source: Apple official website

The strong user group of Apple mobile phone itself also provides important support for the popularization of CarPlay.According to statistics, in 2021, Apple's mobile phone shipments will account for about 22% of the world's share, reaching 239 million units.According to Apple, 79% of U.S. users are only considering buying a car with CarPlay.Many iPhone users have also reported to Gasgoo that CarPlay is basically connected to the car when driving.The new CarPlay is expected to be released in 2023. Apple's content ecology and huge base users are important bargaining chips for its cooperation with car companies.

Can you open the Chinese market?

If nothing else, the new CarPlay will enter the Chinese market.Compared with foreign countries, China's two major fields ofnew energyand intelligence are developing rapidly, the market is highly inclusive, and there is also a huge group of Apple users.However, none of the new CarPlay cooperative vehicle manufacturers announced by Apple is from China, and there is no new force. Even the Volkswagen Group is absent. The reasons behind it are curious.

The new CarPlay cooperates with OEMs, picture source: Apple official website

In this regard, some people in the industry believe that this may be related to the "intelligent" voice that everyone has been emphasizing.The new CarPlay is equivalent to changing the operating mechanism of the existing automobile industry chain and the right of OEMs to speak. The underlying algorithms and operating systems of software and hardware technologies are all developed by Apple.In the future automotive market, software algorithms will be the basis for supporting autonomous driving technology.Therefore, there is a view that the depth of CarPlay's "PPT" landing is debatable.

Recently, when talking about the new CarPlay, He Xiaopeng said that for iOS, CarPlay is an extension of the ecosystem, and it is also a front stop for Apple cars; for iPhone users, CarPlay is definitely a significant enhancement of experience and scenes, and some car manufacturers also make mobile phones. Similar verdict; for smart cars, CarPlay, a subset of smart cockpits, is a very good solution in this generation of cars.The next-generation smart car solutions require more comprehensive full-stack self-development and ecological construction.

He Xiaopeng's remarks were approved by Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu Automobile.In his view, CarPlay is to solve the intelligentization of non-smart cars, but future smart cars will be more and more deeply integrated in software and hardware, which is the biggest change in the era of smart cars.This is why new forces have always chosen self-developed vehicle systems, such as Tesla's Tesla OS, Weilai NIO OS, and Xiaopeng's Xmart OS.Even traditional car companies represented by Geely, Great Wall, Chery, etc., have proposed self-developed or cooperative research and development of car-machine systems. For example, Geely has GKUI intelligent vehicle-mounted system; SAIC Group and Alibaba jointly built the Banma Zhixing interconnected system, covering users More than 3 million;Chery Xiongshi Zhiyun system has been iterated toversion 5.0; Great Wall and Baidu jointly developed the Hi-Life vehicle system.

Image source: Apple official website

"In the process of transforming smart cars from autonomous driving to unmanned driving, there will be a 'hardware + software' revolution with high integration and expanded imagination, which cannot be achieved with the original vehicle integration R&D model. This is also the next-generation imagination of smart cars. , which may also be the reason why Apple wants to enter the era of smart cars." He Xiaopeng said.He believes that the new CarPlay is a front-stop for Apple cars.This is not impossible. Due to the sharing and control of the underlying data, Apple will be able to control the vehicle system of different models through CarPlay, obtain data such as fuel consumption, speed, energy consumption, etc., and then analyze iPhone users' travel habits, driving distance, etc. , which will become the factual basis for Apple's car development.

There is even a view that Apple can also indirectly obtain key car braking, steering and other data through GPS.The purpose of doing so will inevitably make people suspect that this is to build a smart cockpit for Apple iCar to accumulate data.Or, a small step closer to the release of Apple's iCar?

However, although Apple aims to challenge the entire automotive software industry, it remains to be seen whether traditional car companies and other entrants will hand over this market.In fact, the war between traditional car companies and Apple has already started.With the increasing demand for intelligence in the market, some car companies have successively cancelled the pre-installation of CarPlay and switched to self-developed car-machine systems, resulting in a rapid decline in the market share of CarPlay.Data shows that the installed rate of CarPlay is currently only about 30%, down 50% from the previous one.Some evenpredictthat CarPlay will disappear in a few years.This time, many of the functional demonstrations of Apple CarPlay belong to the demo state, and it will take time to verify the actual user experience.

Image source: Apple official website

Regarding the absence of the Volkswagen Group, there is a view that in the face of the coming era of smart cars, foreign car companies do not seem to want to only earn hardware income, but cede Internet service fees to Apple.Volkswagen established the "Car.Software" in-vehicle software development department in 2019, and launched the ID. Software 3.0 system in March this year.In May, Volkswagen CARIAD China subsidiary was established, which will develop smart cockpit and body design, big data and software operating system.

Not to mention local car companies, they regard intelligence as an excellent opportunity for "overtaking on a curve", and they have launched their layouts one after another. Behind this, the determination to master the dominance of smart cars is self-evident.On the intelligent track, Chinese brand cars themselves also have fertile soil for development.my country's smart car field has formed a relatively complete industrial chain, including Huawei, Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, Horizon, Black Sesame Intelligence, Hesai Technology, Huayu Automobile, Desay SV and other enterprises, covering intelligent network connection, autonomous driving , sensors, lidar, automotive electronics and other fields.This has become a powerful boost for Chinese brand cars to achieve "curve overtaking".

For example, Huawei also released a CarPlay-like HUAWEI HiCar in 2019, which is committed to opening up all the ecology of Huawei's mobile phones, cars, and homes.Data shows that Huawei has cooperated with more than 30 car companies including SAIC MAXUS, GAC, BAIC, and JAC, supporting more than 120 HiCar models.

Image source: Apple official website

Moreover, the entry of the new CarPlay into the Chinese market may also involve car data security issues.At present, smart cars are equipped with multiple sensors, cameras, millimeter-wave radars, etc. After CarPlay takes over the car system, it will process the massive data generated by the vehicle together, which may involve privacy.Tesla, which is also an American company, has been caught in the data security problem of collecting images to expose privacy.Tesla's solution is to set up a Tesla China data center in China, and all data in China is stored in China.

To sum up, there is no shortage of market for the new CarPlay in China, which is bound to arouse the vigilance of domestic brands.However, with the advantages of Chinese brand cars in the two tracks of new energy and intelligence, consumers' recognition of local smart cars has continued to increase, and the market's perception of foreign brands such as Apple and Tesla has become more objective.With the new CarPlay, with the Apple iCar, Chinese brand cars may not be afraid of a battle.